ANNECY 2023: Nimona Review
© Annapurna Pictures & Netflix
Nimona deserves this victory lap. To not only suffer a production cut short by a corporate merger, but to see the entire studio around them be dissolved by a 100 year old mouse could have been near-traumatic for directors Nick Bruno and Troy Quane. So when the two stepped out on an Annecy stage littered with paper planes, as is tradition, celebration was in the air. Bruno spun a metaphor about the film’s production, likening it to being devoured by mouse and duck-shaped zombies at the peak of a rollercoaster. Annecy represented the relief of finding solid ground again. Also in attendance was Nimona creator Nate Stevenson, who received an eruption of applause which was virtually volcanic. Every palm in the house was still stinging by the time the lights dimmed and the screen beamed pastel pink goodness into our eyes.
This is a story of connection between two outsiders. People suffering from irrational demonisation by society. The impish and chaotic Nimona (Chloë Grace Moretz) and the straight-laced and brooding Ballister Boldheart (Riz Ahmed) seek to tear down the system that unfairly exiled them and actively oppressed them. The allegory couldn’t be more obvious, and the film is better off for it.
Despite the deeply serious messaging, Nimona is hilarious, that much is clear from the trailer. The shapeshifting protagonist’s enchanting superpower is used to push her expressions and contortions of the face and body to delightful whacky heights. It’s heartwarming to see so many films not afraid of hyper unrealistic exaggeration. A story like Nimona would be weaker without it. Additionally, Nimona finds its humour in writing and contrasts between characters, rather than the sickeningly sweet animated trope of force-ably lovable animal sidekicks. The audience started to see right through that trope and it is by the grace of an angel that it is dying.
© Annapurna Pictures & Netflix
Nimona’s attraction to anarchy makes for amusement but is also used to communicate the radical themes of the film. The shock factor of her constant calls for the deaths of the kingdom’s knights or her careless attitude towards pain create a compelling character to watch compared to a protagonist who is an all round well-mannered guy.
Nimona is unabashedly anti-policing and proudly LGBTQ. Coding an establishment smashing story hundreds of layers below the surface of a seemingly innocent kids movie is one thing, and simply suggesting a boy may possibly like another boy is cute. Nimona does away with the subtext and wears its convictions on its sleeve. It also represents the boldest pro-trans story seen in a mainstream Hollywood movie yet. These themes can dip below the film’s fast pace and large-scale action (which can tip a bit too much onto the ‘spectacle for the sake of spectacle’ side of things), but it would be difficult to leave the movie without considering them.
Nimona does miss out on the chance to break more new ground by staying a bit more true to the graphic novel. Nimona being drawn as a fat character felt empowering in the books. A shapeshifter who chooses to be fat, that is defiance in the face of societal standards, that is Nimona. To see her character model in the film be straight-bodied might be disappointing to many.
© Annapurna Pictures & Netflix
Still, Disney dropping the project and dissolving Blue Sky studios could have robbed the world of a movie where so many teens and young adults will feel truly represented for the first time. Nimona also pushes the audience to look critically at their surroundings. Sometimes a system is too rotten to be restored, and the best option might be to tear the whole thing to the ground. A system based on the worship of homophobes and transphobes will always be homophobic and transphobic. No society is progressive or inclusive until its roots are reconsidered.
Built around this messaging is a world of mediaeval-futurism. There are screens, modern trains and bionic arms in people’s day-to-day lives, but the kingdom’s monarchy insists on knights, swords and arrows. The contrast is a beautiful representation of a world begging to move into the future but a government insisting on archaic ideals.
At most studios, embracing queer storytelling is on a list of boxes to tick accompanied by a question mark. What started at Blue Sky and ended at Netflix does not feel this way. Nimona embraces LGBTQ storytelling because it is the truth of the character’s creator and for the desire to be a safe space and a beacon of joy for people trying to figure out who they are. Certain studios are too mediaeval to truly accept Nimona, but we don’t need them to build a more accepting system.
Nimona streams on Netflix on June 30th.